With the highly-anticipated second season of the Jersey Shore hours away, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Vinny Guadagnino, DJ Pauly DelVecchio and Jenni “J-Woww” Farley took some time to chat with Today‘s Matt Lauer, clearing up salary rumors and responding to Garden State Governor Chris Christie‘s claim that their reality show gives the real New Jersey shore a bad name!

The cast of MTV’s hit reality show received a lot of attention over alleged salary disputes leading up to season two.

“They parachute all of these people from New York onto the Jersey Shore and than they say it’s New Jersey. It’s not New Jersey,” he explained. “If you want to go to the Jersey Shore, then come, we will show you.”

In response, Matt asked the governor — who is facing a $1 billion deficit in the Garden state — if the Jersey Shore kids should maybe be applauded for increasing tourism in Jersey beach towns, something that is good for the economy.